Cachexia is a systemic syndrome with progressive loss of body weight, anemia, edema, and anorexia as cardinal symptoms which develops in chronic diseases such as malignant tumor, tuberculosis, diabetes, blood dyscrasia, endocrine disease, infectious disease, and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome [e.g. Kern et al., Cancer Cachexia, J. Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition, 12, 286-298 (1988) and American Journal of Medicine, 85, 289-291 (1988)].
In cachexia, therapeutic nutrition and endocrine therapy are generally administered but a satisfactory anticachectic modality remains to be established. Particularly where cachexia is caused by a malignant tumor, the available anticancer chemotherapy cannot be administered when cachexia is progressing, with the result that the treatment encounters a serious setback. Moreover, any therapeutic nutrition for relief of cachectic symptoms may rather exacerbate the malignant tumor and detract from the life expectancy of the patient. While cachexia is frequently caused by the malignant tumors, administration of an antitumor agent in such settings may result in control of the tumors but generally side effects of the drug develop in superimposition, the net result being no improvement in cachexia [Nelson et al., Journal of Clinical Oncology, 12, 213-225 (1994)].
In the above state of the art, there is a standing need for an anticachectic composition that should ameliorate or inhibit progression of cachectic symptoms such as loss of body weight.